Posts by Russell Brown
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So I had a look to say what Whaleoil readers and the Keeping Stock blog thought about this.
I think we can fairly use the term Len Derangement Syndrome.
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Hard News: The Mayor's marginal enemies, in reply to Steve Curtis,
And don’t forget that when Brown opened the Panmure transport interchange:
Questions were also raised about the level of security shadowing the mayor
It's usually a bad sign when the story angle is in the passive voice.
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Hard News: The Mayor's marginal enemies, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
And, of course, if Brown isn’t at the Howick Military Tattoo, I’m sure Orsman would just cut and paste The Herald’s last “AWOL Mayor proves he’s out of touch with the community, and must go” screed after getting a quote from Stewart weeping crocodile tears about the Mayor’s snub to the whole community.
That's something that has great annoyed me. Brown is routinely blamed for being protested at if he fronts up or running for cover if he doesn't.
Case in point: the story about the security around Brown at the opening of the new Panmure railway station. His opponents were quoted at some length depicting it as a squandering of ratepayers' money -- the implication being that Brown is so reviled he can barely go out in public with being surrounded by heavies.
I've been able to confirm with someone with direct knowledge of the event that the security was simply a standard hire for such an event. Understandably, I think, I'm becoming weary of these apparent non-stories.
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Hard News: The Mayor's marginal enemies, in reply to Kumara Republic,
It’s a somewhat similar story in Wellington with the Dom and Mayor Celia Wade-Brown.
It's a little different here. The Herald has done some great city coverage. Although I'm obviously not alone in thinking that Bernard Orsman's reporting seems unduly influenced by his own beliefs and that his coverage of the Unitary Plan has sometimes simply been inaccurate as a consequence.
But newspapers sometimes take editorial stances or embark on campaigns as a matter of branding and that's what the Herald did here. Unfortunately, it hasn't worked out as a populist pitch and they've basically cornered themselves. Hence, awkward contrivances like today's lead story.
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Hard News: The Mayor's marginal enemies, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
An entire post criticising the opponents of a politician without basically once addressing their arguments? Isn’t this textbook ad hominem?
No, it isn’t. We’ve been through the actual arguments at considerable length on this site.
The point here is that the protest lobby is very small and very marginal and not the popular movement implied in some news reports. One of the speakers is the subject of an order forbidding him to contact Auckland councillors. This seems relevant.
I have also been critical of the structure of the the Herald’s story and its presentation on the front page. In particular, have “organisers” told Brown not to attend a community event with his family, or is this a case of a councillor who has completely lost her case with her colleagues abusing her position with an independent event? This seems a relevant question too.
On the whole, I believe the story as such doesn’t warrant its treatment, and that the news report itself is deficient in key respects.
I trust that this addresses your concerns, Graeme.
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The moon rising at Tapapakanga beach on Saturday evening, before The Orb took the stage at Splore (behind me is a large crowd). It was a fairly extraordinary weekend.
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Hard News: Bad Judgement, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Would you like to share the University of Waikato’s policy around staff use of university e-mail accounts and computers? I’m sure much of it is blindingly obvious (do your porn on your own broadband, for example), and highly dependent on the basic good sense and professionalism of staff. YMMV on whether that’s in plentiful supply at TVNZ nowadays.
I might be wrong, but I thik what we're talking about here wouldn't really raise an eyebrow in an academic environment.
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Seun Shote’s fabulous collection of photographs of the people of Splore 2014.
So many smiles.
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Hard News: Bad Judgement, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
if [we] are unconnected with policy development or are not in a managerial role, we will usually be free to be politically active
Which is the case for nearly everyone, and quite right. You can’t gag a huge percentage of the workforce like that.
Quite. David Farrar seems to be saying at the moment the other staffers shouldn’t have been politically active (and should be sacked now) because their jobs are taxpayer-funded. So someone in a purely admin job is denied the right to be politically active?
This is, of course, a little ironic when you consider the ultimate source of much of Farrar’s income.
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Hard News: Bad Judgement, in reply to Chris Waugh,
A very interesting 2005 story from the Herald
Got a link for that?
Duh. Yes.
